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What are the biggest property risks in Hiroshima?

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SUMMARY

The biggest property risks in Hiroshima today are concentrated rather than citywide: demographic decline in weaker outer districts, flood and landslide exposure, expensive new condos, fragile finances in older buildings, and poor resale liquidity.

Hiroshima is splitting internally. Naka Ward is still gaining residents while Asakita and Aki have each lost more than 6% of their populations in five years, so the city average hides a much bigger gap between strong and weak locations.

Falling population has not yet translated into falling housing demand because household numbers are still rising. Smaller households are buying Hiroshima time, but that buffer will become much less helpful once household formation starts declining too.

The vacancy picture is more subtle than the headline rate suggests. Total empty homes barely moved, yet vacant rental units increased by roughly 18%, which means landlords face more competition even without a broad abandonment problem.

New condos are now expensive enough to create valuation risk on their own. The latest average price remains about 29% above two years earlier, and part of the recent annual decline simply reflects a different mix of projects rather than a clear like-for-like correction.

Hiroshima Station is genuinely better after redevelopment, but buyers are no longer getting the pre-redevelopment trade. Land prices around the station have already risen sharply, so future returns depend much more on the individual purchase price.

Physical risk can completely change the economics of a property. Central delta locations need flood and drainage checks, while hillside districts can carry serious landslide exposure; two homes with similar access can therefore deserve very different prices.

Cheap older condos can be deceptive because the expensive risk often sits outside the apartment itself. Weak repair reserves, ageing owners, deferred maintenance and special assessments can erase much of the apparent discount.

Higher mortgage rates and only moderate rents make it harder for expensive average-quality property to justify itself. Hiroshima does not need a crash for buyers to lose money; a slow market with fewer future bidders can be enough.

The real dividing line is resale depth. Scarce, useful, well-connected property with manageable hazards can still hold up well, while peripheral houses, weak buildings and generic expensive condos are increasingly exposed to a thinner future buyer pool.

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Is Hiroshima property actually risky right now?

Hiroshima property is currently becoming riskier to buy badly, even though the city is nowhere near a broad housing crash.

The latest evidence points to a market splitting internally. Hiroshima City's preliminary census count fell to 1,172,423, down 2.4% in five years, while household numbers still rose 1.3%. At the same time, Haseko Research Institute found that the average price of a newly supplied Hiroshima condo was still ¥52.48 million in the latest full year, after an extraordinary jump the year before.

Those figures can coexist because demand is concentrating. Central Naka Ward gained residents while Asakita and Aki each lost more than 6% of their populations. Buyers are still willing to pay for central access, newer buildings and strong transport, but that says much less about the future value of ordinary housing farther out.

Physical risk adds another layer. Hiroshima's flat river delta carries meaningful flood exposure, while its surrounding hills contain thousands of landslide warning zones. The cheapest property can therefore be cheap for reasons that become painfully obvious when it is time to resell.

The biggest Hiroshima property risk today is selection. A strong city-centre apartment and an ageing hillside house may technically sit in the same market, but their long-term prospects are moving in very different directions.

Is Hiroshima's shrinking population becoming a real property problem?

Yes. Hiroshima's population decline has now reached a point where buyers should assume that some neighbourhoods will have fewer future buyers than they have today.

The latest preliminary census is much more useful than older citywide estimates because it shows how uneven the decline has become. Hiroshima City lost 28,331 residents over five years, taking the population down 2.4%. Yet Naka Ward grew 1.1%, while Asakita fell 6.2% and Aki fell 6.1%.

That gap is already large enough to affect how we value property. Losing 6% of a ward's population in five years works out to roughly one resident in sixteen disappearing from the local market. If that continues for another decade, maintaining today's depth of buyers for ordinary family homes becomes difficult.

Hiroshima still benefits from being the dominant employment, university, healthcare and service centre of western Honshu's Chugoku region. That should keep drawing people away from weaker surrounding municipalities. But regional concentration helps the central city much more than every neighbourhood inside it.

For property buyers, Hiroshima's demographic problem is becoming very local. We would worry far more about a replaceable house in a shrinking outer district than about a scarce apartment in a central neighbourhood where people are still moving in.

Hiroshima ward Latest preliminary population Five-year change Household change What we would watch
Naka 144,267 +1.1% +4.7% Strong central demand
Minami 143,636 -1.5% +1.7% Population weaker, households still growing
Nishi 184,911 -2.8% -0.9% More mixed outlook
Asaminami 243,794 -1.3% +2.7% Still relatively resilient
Asakita 130,297 -6.2% -2.8% Clear demographic risk
Aki 72,391 -6.1% -0.8% Clear demographic risk
Saeki 137,779 -1.3% +2.8% Better than population alone suggests

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Can Hiroshima keep needing more homes even while the population falls?

For now, yes. Hiroshima is still creating enough households to stop population decline from turning immediately into collapsing housing demand.

The latest preliminary census recorded 6,982 more households than five years earlier despite the city losing more than 28,000 residents. Smaller households are doing a lot of the work here. More people living alone, ageing couples and household separation mean that one million people can require more homes than the same population did in the past.

Housing data show the same pattern over a different period. Hiroshima City's housing stock rose from about 612,100 units to 628,800 in the latest Housing and Land Survey, while the number of households increased from roughly 539,900 to 557,100. Housing stock grew by 16,700 units and households by 17,200, so supply was almost matched by additional households.

That has helped Hiroshima avoid the kind of obvious citywide oversupply we might expect from the population numbers alone.

The protection will not last forever. Household formation generally peaks later than population because average household size keeps shrinking for a while. Once the number of households starts falling as well, weaker neighbourhoods lose that buffer.

This is one reason compact, well-connected housing looks safer to us today than large peripheral homes aimed mainly at families. The demographic shift currently creates demand for more households, but increasingly smaller ones.

Does Hiroshima already have too many empty homes?

Hiroshima does not currently have a citywide empty-home crisis, but landlords should pay much more attention to the rising number of vacant rental units.

The latest Housing and Land Survey counted about 73,700 vacant homes in Hiroshima City, equal to 11.7% of the housing stock. Five years earlier there were roughly 73,000. Total vacancies therefore barely moved, and Hiroshima's vacancy rate remains below Japan's national rate.

The composition changed much more sharply.

Around 46,400 of Hiroshima's latest vacancies were rental homes. Five years earlier the comparable number was roughly 39,200. That works out to an increase of around 7,200 vacant rental units, or about 18%.

So a stable headline vacancy rate hides a meaningful shift inside the market. Investors now face more competition from other empty rental properties even though Hiroshima has not suddenly filled with abandoned homes.

The geography also changes the interpretation. Central Naka has plenty of rental vacancy because it contains a huge rental stock and constant tenant turnover. Outer areas have more detached-house vacancy, which can be harder to clear because fewer buyers want older houses in peripheral locations.

Hiroshima housing measure Earlier survey Latest survey Change What it means
Total homes 612,100 628,800 +16,700 Housing stock kept growing
Households 539,900 557,100 +17,200 Demand broadly kept pace
Vacant homes ~73,000 ~73,700 +~700 Little change overall
Vacancy rate 11.9% 11.7% -0.2 pp No broad vacancy surge
Vacant rental homes ~39,200 ~46,400 +~18% Rental competition clearly increased

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Are new Hiroshima condos getting too expensive?

Yes. New Hiroshima condos are currently expensive enough that the purchase price itself has become one of the main risks.

Haseko Research Institute puts the latest average new-condo price in Hiroshima City at ¥52.48 million. That was down 2.3% from ¥53.72 million the previous year, but the small fall is misleading if we look only at the headline.

The previous year's price had jumped 31.8%. Working backwards gives an average of roughly ¥40.8 million before that surge. Even after the latest decline, a typical new condo therefore costs around 29% more than it did two years earlier.

Haseko also explains why the latest average dropped: fewer homes were supplied within walking distance of major central stations such as Hiroshima and Hatchobori. The market did not suddenly become 2.3% cheaper on a like-for-like basis. Developers simply sold a different mix of properties.

That leaves buyers with a difficult trade-off these days. Construction costs and scarce central land make it genuinely hard for developers to deliver cheap new homes, which supports prices. But high replacement cost does not guarantee that future households can afford ever-higher resale prices.

We would be particularly careful with ordinary new-build units priced as though every Hiroshima condo will inherit the scarcity of the very best central projects.

Hiroshima new-condo measure Two years earlier Previous year Latest year What changed
Average price ~¥40.8m ¥53.72m ¥52.48m Still roughly 29% above two years earlier
Annual change — +31.8% -2.3% Latest fall followed a huge jump
New supply 1,508 units 807 units 1,040 units Supply rebounded
Naka supply 733 120 234 Central supply remains lumpy
Nishi supply 389 187 354 A few projects can move the market

Has Hiroshima Station already priced in its redevelopment boom?

A lot of it has. Hiroshima Station is clearly a stronger property location today, but buyers are now paying after much of the transformation has happened.

The redevelopment is substantial rather than cosmetic. Hiroshima Station has gained a rebuilt station complex, new commercial space and a direct tram connection through the building, creating a much cleaner link between rail and city transport.

Land prices have responded strongly. Official land-price assessments around the station show some commercial plots rising at double-digit annual rates, with a Matsubara-cho site close to Hiroshima Station valued at roughly ¥3.1 million per square metre and up more than 10% in the latest assessment.

Government appraisers explicitly connect stronger demand with the station redevelopment and improved transport access. There is no need to invent a speculative infrastructure story here: the improvement is visible and buyers have already reacted to it.

The investment question now is how much future upside remains after those gains. Someone who bought before the station transformation captured a very different trade from someone buying an expensive apartment beside the completed transport hub today.

We still like the station area's resale depth. We would simply refuse to pay any price for it.

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Which Hiroshima neighbourhoods are most exposed to long-term property decline?

The biggest long-term Hiroshima property risk sits in peripheral neighbourhoods where population loss, weak transport and ageing housing overlap.

As seen above, Asakita has already lost 6.2% of its population in five years and its household count fell 2.8%. Aki shows a similar population decline. Those are far more worrying numbers for ordinary owner-occupied housing than Hiroshima City's 2.4% headline fall.

Asaminami shows why we should avoid treating every suburb the same way. Its population slipped only 1.3%, households increased 2.7%, and its housing vacancy rate was just 7.4% in the latest Housing and Land Survey. Strong rail access and established family neighbourhoods still matter.

Housing type also changes the future buyer pool. Central Naka is dominated by apartments and renters, while Asakita has a much larger share of detached homes. A central apartment can appeal to singles, couples, older residents, investors and people moving into Hiroshima. A large suburban house usually needs a narrower kind of buyer.

Today we would be especially cautious with homes that combine a steep site, long walk or bus ride to rail, ageing construction and little neighbourhood scarcity. Those properties can look cheap for years before the resale problem becomes obvious.

How serious is flood risk for Hiroshima property?

Flood risk is one of Hiroshima's biggest physical property risks today, especially across the low-lying urban delta.

Central Hiroshima sits where the Ōta River breaks into several channels before reaching Hiroshima Bay. That geography gives the city much of its character, but it also means buyers need to check river flooding, internal drainage and storm-surge exposure separately.

Hiroshima's disaster history shows the scale that heavy rain can reach. City records for the severe 2018 rainfall event include more than 1,300 homes flooded above floor level and more than 1,000 below it under the city's historical disaster series. The 2014 heavy-rain disaster produced more than 1,000 above-floor flooding cases and thousands below floor level.

Living on a high condominium floor only solves part of the problem. Electrical equipment, pumps, garages, entrances and lift machinery can sit much lower in the building. Water does not need to reach an apartment's living room to create a costly building-wide problem.

This makes parcel-level checking essential. Two central Hiroshima apartments with almost identical station access can carry very different flood depths on the official hazard map.

For us, a good central location does not cancel flood risk. It means the risk has to be reflected in the price and in the building's engineering.

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Are landslides the bigger danger for suburban Hiroshima homes?

In the hills, yes. Landslides can dominate the entire property risk calculation for suburban Hiroshima.

Hiroshima Prefecture's official inventory identifies 7,781 landslide warning areas inside Hiroshima City, with more than 7,000 also falling into the more serious special-warning category in the published dataset.

The distribution is extremely uneven. Asakita alone contains 2,729 warning areas, Asaminami 1,554 and Saeki 1,427. Naka has only seven.

That pattern tells us far more than the citywide total. Hiroshima's affordable suburban housing often extends into narrow valleys and developed slopes where a house can sit directly below or above steep terrain.

Past disasters make the risk impossible to dismiss as a remote model. The 2014 heavy-rain disaster killed 77 people in Hiroshima City's historical disaster statistics and completely destroyed 179 homes. The later 2018 disaster again caused extensive destruction across the metropolitan area, with the city's more detailed damage assessment recording 111 homes completely destroyed and 358 half destroyed.

A hillside Hiroshima house can still be a perfectly reasonable purchase. But the official hazard designation, retaining walls, drainage and slope above the property belong near the top of the due-diligence file rather than near the bottom.

Hiroshima ward Landslide warning areas Special warning areas Property implication
Naka 7 7 Very limited slope exposure
Higashi 593 530 Material hillside risk
Minami 276 248 Mixed slope and flood exposure
Nishi 400 341 Highly location-specific
Asaminami 1,554 1,393 Serious hillside exposure in parts
Asakita 2,729 2,578 City's largest concentration
Aki 795 754 High relative exposure
Saeki 1,427 1,319 Serious hillside exposure in parts

Should Hiroshima buyers worry more about earthquakes or rain disasters?

For many Hiroshima properties, heavy rain deserves at least as much attention as earthquakes, and sometimes more.

Earthquake due diligence remains important across Japan. Buyers looking at older Hiroshima buildings should pay particular attention to whether the property was designed before or after the 1981 seismic-code change, along with any later structural assessment or reinforcement.

But Hiroshima's own recent disaster record is dominated by another recurring threat: extreme rainfall hitting either the river system or steep surrounding terrain.

The 2014 disaster produced catastrophic landslides. Severe rainfall hit the region again in 2018, and another major rain event caused housing damage in 2021. That recurrence is useful when assessing risk because it shows that Hiroshima's rain exposure cannot be reduced to one freak event.

The practical checks depend on the property. A low-lying central condominium needs flood depth, drainage, ground-floor equipment and seismic standards checked together. A hillside detached house needs slope classification, retaining structures and drainage added to that list.

We would never buy Hiroshima property based on a generic national disaster score. The exact site tells us much more.

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Are cheap older Hiroshima condos a trap?

Some are. The biggest risk with a cheap older Hiroshima condo today is usually the building's finances rather than the condition of the apartment itself.

Older units can trade at huge discounts to new buildings, which makes them tempting when new Hiroshima condos average more than ¥50 million. A nicely renovated 1980s apartment can look especially attractive because the buyer sees new flooring, a modern kitchen and a much lower asking price.

Those improvements say almost nothing about the expensive parts of condominium ownership.

Roof waterproofing, exterior walls, lifts, pipes and other common areas eventually need major work. The key questions are whether the owners' association has a realistic long-term repair plan, enough reserves, manageable arrears and a history of actually carrying out planned work.

Hiroshima City itself now treats ageing condominium management as a policy issue. Its condominium-management plan explicitly refers to the "two ageing problems": older buildings and older owners. The city also operates a management-plan certification system that examines governance, reserve accounting and long-term repair planning.

That gives buyers a useful clue. A cheap apartment inside a financially weak building can become much more expensive once special assessments or sharply higher monthly reserve contributions arrive.

For an older Hiroshima condo, we would read the association accounts before getting excited about the renovated interior.

Do Hiroshima rents support today's property prices?

Only partly. Hiroshima rents currently look healthy enough to support good rental property, but they do not make expensive purchases automatically attractive.

AtHome's current listing data put Hiroshima City's overall advertised rent around ¥57,000 per month, with roughly ¥70,000 for a 1LDK, ¥72,000 for a 2LDK and ¥80,000 for a 3LDK across the site's recent listings. Exact rents vary enormously by age and location, so these citywide figures are useful mainly as a scale check.

Compare that with new-condo prices above ¥52 million. A new family apartment in a strong central neighbourhood can obviously command more than the city average, but buyers still need substantial rent to earn an attractive gross yield at that purchase price.

The vacancy evidence adds pressure. Around 46,400 rental homes were empty in the latest Housing and Land Survey, substantially more than five years earlier. As pointed out above, that has happened without a corresponding explosion in total citywide vacancy, which tells us rental competition is where the market has loosened most.

So we would be selective with buy-to-let in Hiroshima today. An older, well-located apartment bought cheaply can still produce sensible numbers. A brand-new condo bought at a premium because "Hiroshima rents are rising" is much harder to justify.

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Could higher mortgage rates push Hiroshima prices down?

Higher mortgage rates are now a real ceiling on Hiroshima property prices because the cost of borrowing has moved far away from the ultra-cheap environment that helped buyers absorb earlier price increases.

The clearest current benchmark is Japan's Flat 35 programme. For 21-to-35-year fixed mortgages, the most common headline rate currently sits at 3.46% before applicable discounts. Floating-rate borrowers can still obtain cheaper financing, but fixed borrowing now shows just how different the interest-rate environment has become.

Take an illustrative ¥42 million mortgage over 35 years. At 0.5%, the monthly principal-and-interest payment is about ¥109,000. At 1.5%, it is around ¥129,000. At 3%, it approaches ¥162,000, and at 3.46% it reaches roughly ¥173,000.

The gap between the first and last case is about ¥64,000 every month, with exactly the same purchase price.

That pressure arrives when new Hiroshima condos already cost more than ¥50 million on average. Buyers can respond by borrowing more, choosing smaller units, moving farther out or simply bidding less. Local household incomes eventually put a limit on how far prices can run ahead.

We do not need a mortgage shock for this to hurt the market. Even gradual rate normalisation makes expensive, average-quality property harder to resell at today's valuations.

¥42m mortgage over 35 years Approx. monthly payment Extra vs 0.5% Effect on affordability
0.5% ¥109,000 — Ultra-cheap financing
1.5% ¥129,000 +¥20,000 Noticeable pressure
3.0% ¥162,000 +¥53,000 Major reduction in buying power
3.46% ¥173,000 +¥64,000 Roughly 58% higher monthly payment

Could new condo supply suddenly overwhelm Hiroshima?

A citywide condo glut looks unlikely for now, but a single large project can still hurt resale values in a small Hiroshima neighbourhood.

Haseko counted 1,040 new condos supplied in Hiroshima City in the latest full year, up from 807 the year before but still below the 1,508 supplied two years earlier.

Those swings are huge relative to the size of the market. Supply moved by almost 700 units between the recent high and low, yet Hiroshima usually sells only around a thousand new units a year.

The ward numbers make the concentration even clearer. Naka went from 733 new units to 120 and then 234. Nishi dropped from 389 to 187 before jumping back to 354, helped by the launch of a project with roughly 150 units.

Hiroshima buyers should care more about the pipeline within a few kilometres than about a national "Japan housing shortage" story. One large modern development can suddenly give buyers dozens of alternatives to a nearby 20-year-old building.

The danger is strongest for average resale condos without a great view, rare layout, station advantage or meaningful price discount. When a better building opens next door, those units have to compete on price.

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Is poor resale liquidity Hiroshima's biggest hidden property risk?

Yes. Resale liquidity is probably the risk Hiroshima buyers underestimate most today because demographic decline, ageing buildings, hazards and higher borrowing costs all end up affecting the same thing: how many people will want the property later.

A property can avoid a dramatic price crash and still be a bad investment. The owner may discover that the asking price looks reasonable on paper but very few buyers appear without a large discount.

Hiroshima is particularly exposed to that problem because demand is becoming more concentrated. Central districts can keep attracting people from the wider region even as the overall population shrinks. Peripheral homes have to compete for a smaller pool of households, and unusual properties have an even narrower audience.

Physical hazards shrink the pool again. An otherwise similar house outside a landslide zone has an obvious advantage over one inside it. The same goes for an ageing condo with weak reserves when buyers can choose a better-managed building nearby.

Higher mortgage costs amplify the effect because future buyers have less room in their budgets. Expensive property then needs a stronger reason to remain expensive.

When we assess Hiroshima now, we care almost as much about the next buyer as the current one. Properties with several possible future audiences are much safer than homes that require one very specific buyer to appear.

What are the biggest property risks in Hiroshima today?

The biggest property risks in Hiroshima today are clear: buying into a shrinking peripheral neighbourhood, ignoring flood or landslide exposure, paying too much for a new condo, underestimating an older building's repair finances, and owning something that becomes difficult to resell.

The latest evidence makes us more selective rather than broadly bearish on Hiroshima.

The city still has genuine strengths. Naka Ward is gaining residents, total household numbers continue to rise, Hiroshima Station has become a much stronger transport hub, and the city remains the main economic and service centre for a much larger region. Good central property can continue benefiting from that concentration.

The weaker side of the market is becoming easier to identify. Hiroshima City lost 2.4% of its population in five years, while some outer wards lost more than 6%. New-condo prices remain close to ¥52.5 million after a sharp multi-year rise. Current long-term fixed mortgage rates are far above the levels buyers grew used to during Japan's ultra-low-rate period. The city also combines a flood-prone delta with extensive hillside landslide zones.

As we saw previously, vacancies do not point to a broad housing collapse, but the growing number of empty rental units adds another reason to be careful about investment assumptions.

Our conclusion is sharp. Hiroshima is currently a reasonable place to own scarce, useful property and a poor place to rely on the market to rescue a mediocre purchase.

We would favour strong rail or tram access, walkable daily services, manageable hazard exposure, healthy condominium finances and layouts that work for several types of household. We would be much less comfortable with peripheral houses bought mainly because they look cheap or expensive new condos whose investment case depends on Hiroshima prices continuing to rise.

In Hiroshima these days, the gap between a good property and a bad one matters more than the direction of the citywide average.

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OUR METHODOLOGY

This analysis starts from a simple problem: the question "What are the biggest property risks in Hiroshima?" is too broad to answer well from a general impression of the market. We broke it into the dimensions that can materially change a property outcome: future demand, population and household dynamics, supply and vacancy, purchase prices and rents, financing conditions, physical hazards, building-level risk and resale liquidity.

For each dimension, we looked for the freshest relevant evidence available and gave priority to first-hand or authoritative data. Citywide averages were useful for direction, but ward-level, neighbourhood-level and parcel-level evidence mattered more whenever the risk itself was local.

We also separated headline movements from changes in composition. A price or vacancy average can move because the underlying market changed, but it can also move because a different mix of homes, locations or projects entered the dataset. Where that distinction could change the conclusion, we checked the composition before interpreting the headline.

No single number determined the final answer. We compared recent observations with earlier equivalent data, looked for places where independent indicators reinforced or contradicted one another, and then aggregated the evidence point by point. Simple calculations in the article, including percentage changes and mortgage-payment comparisons, were derived from the underlying source figures.

Key sources used include Hiroshima City's 2025 Census preliminary results, Hiroshima City's 2023 Housing and Land Survey, Haseko Research Institute's 2025 regional condominium supply report, MLIT's Hiroshima Station/Matsubara-cho land appraisal, and JR West's Hiroshima Station redevelopment project.

For physical risk, we relied on Hiroshima City's Flood Hazard Map, its Internal Flooding Hazard Map, its Landslide Hazard Map, Hiroshima Prefecture's landslide warning-zone data, and Hiroshima City's historical heavy-rain and typhoon damage records.

For building and affordability risk, we used Hiroshima City's Condominium Management Optimization Plan, its management-plan certification system, AtHome's Hiroshima City rent data, Japan Housing Finance Agency's current Flat 35 rates, and MLIT guidance on the June 1981 seismic-standard change.

The final assessment is therefore an aggregation of recent demographic, housing, financial, physical and market evidence. The point is not to produce a mechanical risk score; it is to make an unclear question much more defensible by showing where the evidence actually converges.

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